Passion Play
by TheLostMaximoff
Summary: Josh Guthrie contemplates his personal struggle to love again all while admiring a classmate.


Passion Play

By TheLostMaximoff

Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. R/R if you like people who still can't get over things.

(Author's Note): The girl in this story is an OC that I borrowed from a friend.

Passion. It's an interesting thing, passion. Everybody has it in one form or another. Everyone has something that they're passionate about. Maybe it's fighting for a cause, maybe it's just living, or maybe it's being able to create something of beauty. But everyone has a passion, a fire inside them that drives them to great heights and great deeds. But what happens when that passion and fire die out? What happens when the light goes out? It's then that the emotional fires of passion become replaced with the cold harshness of reason. It is in this icy prison that I now find myself, that I've been locked away in since Julia's death.

My eyes find themselves drawn away from the dull print of the textbook to something that holds a bit more fascination for me. I find myself staring at her often during class. She sits two rows to my left and one seat up from me. Same seat every day and every day I find myself staring at her. What causes this compulsion is unknown but I don't try fighting it anymore. It's the only time I get to really see her outside of when the New Mutants occasionally spar with her squad. But I like being in English Literature class with her much better. After all, one can hardly really admire a member of the opposing squad during a Danger Room session.

My eyes inadvertently connect with hers and I see her reflexively blush and avert her gaze. I feel something inside me spark and then die just as quickly as it was born. There is a passion in her eyes. Much like her demeanor, it is a quiet passion, a small collection of embers just waiting for the right moment to burst into flames, roaring so loudly and shining so brightly that they can be ignored by no one. Yes, she has a passion inside her. I've seen that fire smolder in her hazel eyes and then flow out of her through her pyrokinetic powers. I've seen her light up the Danger Room with the fire inside her. But like all passions, hers dies down once the flames fade. And when I see this, a small part of me is saddened because if she let out that fire more often then she'd stop hiding behind the image of the quiet girl that everyone overlooks and be her true self.

My eyes linger on her and I ask myself the same question I ask every time this occurs. Why try again? I can feel the passion in me begin to stir. Wings that were broken from a fall yearn to fly again and I long to feel love for someone once more. But reason, the eternal opposing force of passion, has grown quite loud these days and my longings stifle themselves once again. Not again, not after what happened with Julia. I cannot allow my heart to open only to watch it slam closed and shut and feel the aching hollowness that follows. My rational self will not let me set myself up for another fall. But it also forbids me from feeling alive, forbids me from feeling the fire inside me rage out of control. But I want that fire again, that fire she has. Perhaps that is why she stirs up once dead feelings in me. Perhaps I am a moth to her flame. In truth, I am an addict to the drug that men call "passion" and now I ache from the withdrawal. Despite the fact that I know what happened with Julia, I want to fly again. I want to fly to the light she radiates on broken wings and with a wounded soul. But my reasoning stifles this urge. It will only lead to ruin and self-destruction. A love that intense can only consume you.

Our eyes meet again and I feel the longing in me well up once more. Let her be the needle then. Let her be the instrument I use to light my veins up with scorching fire and let reason be damned. Man is a fool to think he can live on ration and reason alone. Our eyes connect again and I can sense that she feels the same yearning and desire in her that I feel in me. We are creatures of emotion, she and I. But the emotion is kept so tightly under wraps for fear of it raging out of control that it's never allowed to grow at all. And what good can come of a dead and emotionally stifled soul?

"But let us turn our attention now to one of the Bard's most famous works." Dr. McCoy's words slice through my thoughts with surgical precision and I break eye contact with her to turn my attention to him.

"Jay?" asks Dr. McCoy, "Could I interest you in filling the role of Romeo for this reading?" I reflexively blush and mutely nod my agreement. Dr. McCoy smiles and turns his attention to her.

"Raye, will you be our Juliet?" he asks. Her face turns a hot and boiling shade of red as she quickly glances at me and then back to him.

"Okay," she replies quietly. Oh speak again, bright angel. Her voice is beautiful, much like the angels I only resemble. But she is an angel and has been ever since I saw her in that first sparring session, her body wreathed in flames and lighting up the room.

"Splendid," says the Beast with a small, conspiratorial smile, "Then let us proceed onward." I steal a glance at Raye and catch her staring at me. I feel the fire inside me melt the ice that surrounds it. And for the first time since I came here, I start forming emotion into verse and tune. Will she be the Juliet to my Romeo? Only time shall tell but I know now that I would rather be consumed by passion than let reason deaden my emotions and snuff out my soul.


End file.
